Is Star Wars working better on TV than the films in cinema?

I came accross this article this morning and I found it rather interesting since it shares many of my recent thoughts on Star Wars.

As I said in other threads, I haven't watched the 6 previous Star Wars movies for years and the main reasons were because I slowly lost interest in the saga and I also wanted to experience new contents. Many people said that The Clone Wars CGI series and Clone Wars (the micro-series) were better than the prequels which I agree on a certain degree.

But recently, after watching the first season of Rebels and the premiere of its second season, I'm also thinking more and more that this new TV series is better than the Original Trilogy. There are many reasons that pushed me to think this way: I've found Darth Vader to be more terrifying in Rebels than in the Original Trilogy, we have also better dialogue (I've always found that the quality of the dialogue between the OT and PT isn't very different), better action, more developped stories, better effects (which are mainly CGI) and more developped characters in Rebels than in the Original Trilogy. The same things were said when comparing the Prequel Trilogy to the two previous Clone Wars series (CGI and micro-series).

What are your thoughts on this?

Link: http://moviepilot.com/posts/2015/07...-the-cinema-3361209?lt_source=external,manual

 

I think they are both great. However, in all honesty, I doubt any kind of installment will have the same kind of impact that the OT had. The OT changed everything, and not just because it was simply the first installment. Rather, I have yet to see any film series leave a bigger impact on the world than Star Wars. In the 2000s, many people loved the LOTR and Harry Potter series. Nevertheless, it seems the fan craze died out a lot faster than the Star Wars craze. Star Wars continues to be iconic, and at the time of its release, it influenced many aspiring directors, including Peter Jackson and James Cameron.

 

Glad he and others like the tv content but I hardly echo his opinions that tv is superior SW.

 

anyone saying this wasn't around in 77.

 

First off. I will say I love the OT. I did watch it in cinemas the first time around. I was really little when I first saw Star Wars but it became part of my growing up. Remember attending bday parties and role-playing Star Wars with my friends. The PT I like, but not love like the OT.

But I must say I like the television series a lot, and I agree with some of the points made in that article. I first thought Rebels was going to be too much for young kids, and it is, but it's also so much more.

I like the animated Clone Wars as well as the CG ones, but I think Rebels is much better at capturing some of the "fun" and "adventure" feeling of the original Star Wars (now ANH), than anything else SW since 1977.

Is all TV Star Wars better than the Cinema Star Wars, No. But let's not forget some forgettable things on both sides:

TV
- The Holiday Special. Worst piece of SW material.
- The Ewoks Animated Series

Cinema
- Clone Wars (CG movie) just doesn't do it for me. It should've been a direct to TV release

 

Not everyone was around in '77, though. That's not really a fair criticism. I disagree with the conclusion of the article, but I wasn't around in '77 either. I just happen to really love the story of the saga as a whole, which at its core is the story of Anakin and Luke.

 

Delete

 

Star Wars is a very broad thing.

But it's also a manifestly filmic endeavour; to me.

 

Live action is best. The PT fights are more better than the fights in tv.

 

Movies, tv, books, comics, and games are all equal to me.

 

I`m sure Star Wars can work on TV, but I haven`t really been impressed with much of its television offerings thus far. I feel that The Clone Wars gave exactly the opposite of what the article stated: less interesting characters (often "simplified" from their original counterparts), poorly used villains (all characterized the same way - just plain evil, nothing else), and very poorly crafted stories (very fan-fiction-y at times, despite some good ideas). The first season of Rebels provided a more interesting, straighened storyline (Greg Weisman`s doing, I suspect), but it really went overboard with the most uninteresting and bland team of protagonists I have ever seen on a TV show (any TV show). With the exception of Chopper. I kind of like Chopper.

The TV offering I feel best captured the feel of the movies was the 2003 Clone Wars, even though I really, really dislike the Dragon Ball-esque approach they took with the Jedi. But it feels like Star Wars, because the characterizations are mostly quite good (with the exception of Grievous. Boy, did they get Grievous wrong there...), the story has weight and impact, they touch on important events to the saga, the music is well used, the drama resembles the movie-feel, even the shots are kind of GL-esque. It`s not a perfect show by any means, and there`s much wrong with it, but I like it best overall.

I realize, however, that there are many that love TCW and Rebels. It`s highly subjective, because there are many ways Star Wars can "work" for someone. Those shows just present sides of SW that do not work for me.

 

I welcome the broadening of the SW experience as the years go by and I can see advantages of telling the story in a less broad brush way via a range of media. For me, though, the sense of occasion and grandeur which only film can truly create, is an important, in fact crucial, element of SW. Short answer: No.

 

lol no

 

I enjoyed both Clone Wars and The Clone Wars. The former was consistently fantastic (it was short, that's easier) and the latter had its clunkers but it also had some really fantastic stories as well. I'm currently enjoying Rebels; I like the characters a lot and I think it's a lot of fun. There are a great many Star Wars comics, novels, junior novels, and video games that I have enjoyed to varying degrees, some very much. At the end of the day, these things feel like fun extensions of Star Wars to me, but they don't feel like... Star Wars. I think SW relies very much upon visuals, motion, and sound, so books and comics are never going to give the full experience. But I also think live-action is essential, because Star Wars needs to feel real, so video games and, yes, animated TV series can't really deliver the true experience for me. I'd be curious to see if a live action TV series could change my mind or feel "authentically" Star Wars to me, though.

 

It was made for TV, it just happened to get a theatrical release. But if you're going to count it as part of the franchise's cinematic universe, you might as well count Caravan of Courage.

 

But if it was released first in cinemas isn't it considered a "cinema" Star Wars?

I had totally forgotten that Ewok movie. Now I'll have to forget it all-over again

I guess what I was trying to say is that to each their own. I liked some of the TV series story lines because they expand on the movies while still being cohesive. Some of the TCW and Clone Wars (animated) stories are a bit over-the-top for my taste also and agree with the poster that says they are like fan-fiction or EU'ish to me. Meaning only that they seem to ignore some of the "limitations" and "physics" of the movies.

I'm not a PT hater, but for the most part, I find that I can't really defend them as good movies. Even my kids that have watched starwars after all the tweaks (DVD releases), enjoy the OT and very seldom will re-watch the PT.

Their favorite movies are ROTJ and then ESB.

 

Intrinsically, television still seems smaller-scale, to me. Not that it can't do beauty and depth (watch "Cosmos" and "The Ascent Of Man" sometime -- everyone).

The medium of cinema is still unrivalled, in my opinion. It's more lyrical.

Or it can be. With the right people involved.

 

I guess you may consider it that, but I don't. I know what it was made for. Having a theatrical release was an afterthought.

Speaking of scale, Rebels (due to its lower budget compared to The Clone Wars) lacks it in spades which ends up affecting the story and its characters.

 

Why isn't everyone voting "The movies and TV shows are both great." They are, aren't they? Is something wrong with Clone Wars and Rebels? I think both the films (even TPM and AOTC, I'd still give those 9.1s and 9.3s respectively) and the shows are fantastic!

Now we'll see if the sequel trilogy will hold a candle to the six films and the two (canon) shows. Something tells me they're going to feel out of place. If a Skywalker isn't the main character...hmm...I don't know how I'll feel about that. ROTJ ended so well.

 

Hell no. TCW is pretty much the a ridiculous waste of time and money, and I'm still not convinced that Rebels is much better (screw the other characters, let's just focus on Hera). And as much as I love the microseries, they're a little too short to be any threat to the movies (more of an appetizing complement).

My excitement for TFA stems exclusively from wanting to finally see something in new Star Wars that ISN'T from the horrendous TV canon...though that could change if I'm proven wrong.

 

No. I do like the star wars TV shows (especially both clone wars ones), but I always felt star wars is primarily a movie franchise. Books, games and comics do help flesh out the world but I feel the movies should be the main focus.

 

I don't think one's really "better" than the other-they're such different mediums...As far as successful, by the numbers, then definately the films of course. If we;re talking about new material, I think it's too early to tell. We need to see TFA and Rogue One first before making that kind of judgement IMO. I personally of course like the main saga best, by far. But I really enjoy Rebels too. And although I missed out on much of it as it aired (didn't have DVR yet), I did quite enjoy the episodes of TCW I actually SAW.

But I think it's always going to be the films that "work better" if I really had to choose one-simply because that is how SW was born and how it was originally meant to be told...

 

Star Wars is a brilliantly vast universe that it really shouldn't be contained to two hour blocks. It really needs to breathe, and it really does excel at television, where it can truly capture the imagination and go further than the movies could ever hope to. But, Star Wars was inspired by the serialized storytelling of the 30's and 40's, so yes, it's fundamentally a part of Star Wars to tell long form stories, and television, specifically animation, is the strongest avenue to realize the broad Star Wars fiction. Even the films just feel like expanded episodes or extended series. That's just the simple strength of the brand, Star Wars is at its strongest when these serials can be expertly realized on television through the wonders of animation.

 

definitely not.

Movies all the way.

 

Well Obi-Wan21 still has a point: it's true that Star Wars was inspired by series from the 1930's and 1940's such as Flash Gordon. In a way that's why it works better as a serialized story.